Overnight ferry to Ketchikan
Ketchikan is a town of mixed blessings. It’s the biggest city on the temperate rainforest island of Revillagigedo…the fifth largest city in Alaska. The Alaska Marine Highway ferries stop here to disgorge a number of tourists, but the island’s main occupation is servicing the annual 1,059,000 cruise ship passengers: thousands disembark daily. There are 40 different cruise ships (17 different cruise lines) that stop here several times during the year. The docks can accommodate four ships at a time! The biggest cruise ship in the world, the Norwegian Bliss, was docked while we were there. It looms over the town nearly blocking the sun.
The Norwegian Bliss looms over the city.
It carries 4200 passengers and 1700 staff. It is only since the enlargement of the Panama Canal that ships this large have been able to get from the Atlantic to the Inland Passage. After the Caribbean, the passage is the world’s most popular cruise destination. Pollution and garbage control are big issues in Ketchikan.
Just to give an idea of scale, the Bliss from further away.
The cruise lines own most of the trinket shops in town. (We counted 23 jewelry stores in a three block area.) Most passengers mill about town on the walking tour, or board buses for various activities, like visiting the Totem Bight historic park…which we did as well.
Tourists swarm the streets of Ketchikan.
The island has the world’s largest number of standing totem poles in several locations. By custom, once the cedar poles disintegrate from weathering and fall over, they must rot in place…some sort of bad luck standing them up again. The concept of “the lowest man on the totem pole” isn’t a native construct, but a non-native one. In totem tradition the bottom figure supports those above, although every pole tells a different story and has its own significance.
Most totem poles are newer, not ancient. They only last through about 60 years of weathering.
A bear figure tops this pole.
The lodge at Totem Bight state park.
The original inhabitants were Tlingit. Not sure of the 14,000 people now living on the island, what percentage is native.
Art at the Discovery Center.
Some sort of native tool, forget the purpose.
While our truck was in the shop, we had a look at the SE Alaska Discovery Center run by the Fish and Game folks. Good historical displays and native art: worth the visit.
Fortunately we are able to leave town for very nice, primitive campgrounds. September was winding down, and our first camp, the Last Chance, was free as it was closing the next day.
Camp in the deep, dark forest.
We lucked out. For an island that usually gets over 160 inches of rain annually, we didn’t see a drop. This “drought” is causing huge problems for the salmon. The rivers are so low, the salmon are unable to swim up to spawn. We saw salmon trying to swim up low water creeks…it was pathetic. They beat themselves up on the rocks, and were unable to advance. Even the fish ladders had almost no water. Pacific Ocean salmon are in trouble. A good book about this is “Kings of the Yukon” by Adam Weymouth.
Moved up the coast to Settler’s Cove park for the next night. What a lovely facility right on the sound. Trails lead from the campground to an old growth forest. Sitka spruce, western hemlock, western red cedar and huge Alaska yellow cedars line Lunch Creek. The yellow cedar has been one of the most historically valuable trees for native people and for commercial use. It has strong, rot-resistant wood prized for building and sculpture, and soft fibrous bark used in weaving and for native garments. It’s lucky this area has been kept from the loggers’ saws. A few were taken when the trails were built, but the majority survive.
Settler’s Park campground. It’s obvious how little water is coming from the creek.
Old growth yellow cedar.
Stump along the trail with logger’s springboard notch showing.
Lunch Creek
Nasty Devil’s Club flourish on the forest floor.
Cedar needles.
Every part of the devil’s club is spiny. Stems and leaves.
Craig showing the size of a yellow cedar root ball.
It looks like there are many other interesting trails around the island but our stay was brief.
The local taxi and island hopper.
With more time, a visit to the nearby Prince of Wales Island (fourth largest island in the US), would be a must. Largely populated by indigenous Haida people, it isn’t on the cruise ship radar. It has 2500 miles of roads (mostly re-purposed logging roads), lots of trails and only 3000 inhabitants. It’s mostly covered by the Tongass National Forest.
Back on the ferry, we spent 2 nights and most of 3 days getting to Bellingham, WA. Our friends in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island took us in for a few days while our truck was in the fix-it shop. Touring the lovely island was a real treat before heading back to Colorado.
Colorful Friday Harbor
There’s a lot to see on the island. American Camp and British Camp are historic parks which recount the west coast’s fraught struggles for control. We also went to south beach, a lighthouse with frolicking orcas off shore, and Roche Harbor, another relic from the past still keeping busy.
Thayer’s Gulls are the most common all up the NW coast.
Shack made of beach flotsam.
A San Juan Island lighthouse.
Orcas swimming in the straight. Some even breached!
These orcas offer another sad tale of salmon decline. Several of this local pod are starving due to lack of salmon to eat. Animals that have a limited prey base are suffering, while omnivores like foxes are thriving.
Grey phase red foxes are doing well dining on the non-native European burrowing rabbits. This particular color phase is very common on the island.
After our lovely dinner out at Roche Harbor, we continue on.
Into the Cascades and over. On the other side is the tiny town of Winthrop. It was a dying little place before the locals decided to turn it into an old west theme town. It obviously is working, the town was jam packed with tourists.
Follow the Skagit River into the Cascades.
Driving through the northern Cascades is a treat.
Winthrop, Washington.
Stopped at an overlook above Grand Coulee Dam for lunch. Grand Coulee is a huge, concrete dam on the Columbia River built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation water. Constructed between 1933 and 1942. The dam idea was bitterly debated during the 1920s. One group wanted a gravity fed canal while the other wanted a high dam and pumping station. The dam supporters won in 1933. Power from the dam fueled the industries of the Northwest during WWII and beyond. Creation of the reservoir forced the relocation of over 3,000 people, including Native Americans on their ancestral lands. As a side note to the salmon plight, the dam does not contain fish passage, neither does the previous dam downstream, so no salmon reach the reservoir behind the dam.
Washington’s mammoth Grand Coulee dam.
From there to Idaho’s Heyburn state park, just south of Coeur d’Alene.
Drove through the scenic St. Joe River valley to avoid the interstate.
Stopped near Butte, MT for the night at Lost Creek state park. It’s in a spectacular canyon. If you find yourself needing a camp spot around Butte, go find it. Had plans to take pictures in the morning, but it dawned cold and foggy.
It was colder in Wyoming than Alaska or the Yukon. The road between Cooke City, MT just outside of Yellowstone Park (which was still packed with tourists even at the end of September), and Cody, WY was nearly impassible with ice and snow in places. In my opinion, that road, Hwy. 296, in milder weather is one of the most beautiful in the nation. Try it sometime.
Leaving Cooke City.
At the top of the pass we could sympathize with those early explorers.
Further along 296 almost to Cody. Although it was cloudy and cold, the colors shine through.
After Cody the weather improved. Took a side road to Lysite, and then off that road for a lunch spot. We saw hundreds of Pronghorn antelope in mid-Wyoming.
Weathered clay in whites, purples, greens and reds give the hills their wonderful colors.
Young pronghorn heading to mom near Glendo.
For now we’ll catch up on chores until the next adventure.